High Court challenge to Tamil asylum seeker case to proceed

The asylum seekers were initially taken to the Cocos Islands before being transferred to WA

AAP: Brad Waugh

A High Court challenge to the Federal Government's powers to detain and turn back asylum seekers at sea will proceed to a full bench hearing in October.

Lawyers for 157 Tamils now held in the Nauru detention centre say their clients were falsely imprisoned on a Customs ship for a month and are contesting the Government's power to detain them.

The group was intercepted after leaving Pondicherry in India in June.

They were separated and kept in windowless rooms on the ship, and were let out for three hours to exercise and eat while their case was heard in the Australian High Court.

The had been due to proceed as a trial before the full bench of the court in Canberra in early August, but the Government moved the asylum seekers to the Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia, before moving them again to Nauru.